The dreamer and the writer

Menu

Tag Archives: horror

Yes, I am sad to admit that this post is one of those posts that are basically blatant self-advertising. However, I’m just a little excited to let you know about this. No, I am not getting a book published. I haven’t even tried yet. The Horrirific is the title of my new blog, which deals with reviews for horror movies. I love watching horror movies, I love writing, so I thought, why not combine the two? There are about four reviews on there at the moment, but please check it out. After all, you may be interested in finding out about some of the strange things I watch.

The average kid is not a bodybuilder. They generally are not that tall yet, nor do they have the same strength of an adult. If they get into trouble with some kind of being that’s stronger than them, they cannot solve the problem through brawn. They have to use their brains instead. In my children’s stories, that is exactly what happens.
When I was younger, I was a pretty scrawny kid. I could not even turn a key in its lock (although, in all honesty, I still may fail at times). During that period, I really did not enjoy reading about people in my fantasy books who just managed to fight themselves past every obstacle. I wanted to be able to identify with the main character, which I could not in cases like these. Instead, I preferred the main characters to be clever and witty. They could be tiny, they could be weak, but they could not be dumb. I wanted them to be me, yet I wanted to admire them at the same time. How I admired those with smarts…
I still do, though. In my opinion, fight scenes are not all that interesting. Sure, they are great ways to create tension, but I cannot read them over and over again. People punch, people kick, people bite. I’ve never been interested in violence like that, especially since I couldn’t believe it. Nobody is going to convince me that the average eight-year-old can kick a powerful warlock’s ass with sheer strength. No thanks. I can imagine that there are more kids like me out there, and they are the ones I like to write for. Horror is my preferred genre, and I know that the evil doesn’t necessarily needs to be punched in order to be overcome. In fact, that sounds like a terrible idea. The supernatural cannot be hit – it should be outsmarted instead.
Horror is just as broad of a genre as all others. I like smart kids, so they will be in there. Still, though, I should be able to figure out a way to make them witty and smart and not want to murder them at the same time because I grossly overdo it. Smarts are fun in children’s fiction.

I had never seen the movie E.T. when I started working on my manuscript of which the working title was “The Moon Girl”. In fact, I didn’t even know what it was about other than the friendship between a boy and an alien. It was something I never thought about until after I had already finished the manuscript. That was when I realised something horrible: my story, about an alien princess who had been send to Earth to retrieve her space ships power device, was eerily alike with Spielberg’s E.T. Of course there were differences. The most important was that my alien girl was a lot less innocent than the other extraterrestial being. In the end, she even admitted to having contemplated destroying the entire Earth. As far as I could tell from the summary, E.T. never came close to such ideas. Also, there was nothing cute about my alien girl with her big black eyes. She strongly disliked the main character, who in turn strongly disliked her – even though she only disliked him because of how horribly he treated her. If this is plagiarism, then it was completely unintentional. E.T. came out thirteen years before I was born. I wasn’t influenced by it. However, now I’m starting to feel bad. I should have known.
Another case of possible unintentional plagiarism can be found in the first manuscript in my series. I am not sure if a character’s looks can be plagiarised, though. Otherwise, the Face Stealer and Slenderman could very well be twins. Again, I didn’t intend to do this. All I was trying to do was create a faceless being with some human properties in order to make it fit in with the world. Of course I could have come up with many different kinds of faceless creatures, but a shadowy figure would stand out in a crowd. I couldn’t use that. Instead, I chose to give my demon the form of a tall, bald man with pale skin and no face (until it started stealing them). That is where the similarities ended. This creature didn’t kill or actually harm anyone. All it wanted was to find its perfect face. In the process, though, it swapped the faces of almost everyone in town. It was meant to be funny with just a little bit of scary. It wasn’t Slenderman, yet again I feel like I horribly wronged someone without even thinking about it.
Now I’m wondering if unintentional plagiarism even exists. I know you have to do something horribly wrong in order to be persecuted for it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t bad. Being unintentionally unoriginal is not something that should happen to a writer – yet it happens to all of us, as nothing is ever really original. All stories have already been told. All kinds of characters have already been made. We just have to decide how to use them in order to make them interesting again.

Every main character needs to be flawed, at least to an extent. Actually, every character needs to be flawed. No one is perfect, everyone has their own strange quirks and shortcomings. However, what are we as writers supposed to do when our own characters are driving us mad?
My series’ actual main character, a ten-year-old boy, is a total brat. He is bossy, arrogant and lazy, he’s a scaredy cat and he is driven by wanting to be perceived as ‘masculine’, although he really doesn’t have a clue as to what actual manliness entails. One hint, main character: it’s not about being a jerk to everyone around you. If it isn’t clear by now, I really cannot stand the kid. Why I ever picked him to be the lead of my series is a mystery to me. I actually had to quit the third book in the series for a while because I really did not want to have to get into his head again.
On the other hand, I liked the main character’s older sister much better. She’s eleven years old and aspires to become a witch. Although she is totally nuts in the main character’s eyes, she is so much more likeable to me than he is. She isn’t driven by some weird ideal – all she wants is to have fun and to explore the boundaries of the world. It may have been a horrible choice, but she is the reason why I decided to skip straight to the fifth book in the series, where she is the main character. A bad idea, huh? I’m guessing that most boys don’t enjoy reading about girls, especially not about young witches. With regards to my intended audience, it is not the greatest idea. However, as soon as I started writing about her, I immediately found my drive to write back. It may not just have been her, though. Another reason may have been that this is an actual ghost story with a likeable main character, instead of a story about a bratty boy who turns into a mouse.
I am not sure what to do now. I’m definitely going to continue the series. Possibly there will be another book about the girl. That is not the core of the problem, though. The real question is why the original main character turned into such a horrible brat that I couldn’t even stand to write about. I will have to fix that. He will get better over time, that’s for sure. That’s called character development. Until then, I will have to deal with him – and try to iron out his slightly-too-flawed personality. Thankfully, he is just a character in my head. He can change… Reality is, he has already come to life, so it’s going to be hard.
Has anyone else ever had that problem? Some main characters just decide to live their lives on their own… and it feels like there is nothing we can do to stop it. That may be the power of the writer’s mind, but it’s also a curse.

For my 50st blog, I decided I’d do something special. Here is the first chapter of the first book in my children’s series, called The Face Stealer. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Chapter 1: A Halloween Dream

“Can you see anything yet?” I asked my little brother Levi.
“No. Jamie, I don’t even know what I’m looking for! This is so boring.”
“I thought you wanted to see a real-live Halloween monster?”
To me, Halloween was the most special day of the year. After all, it was the day people would turn into monsters… And monsters would turn into people. I had been waiting all year for it. Me and my family had moved to this town called Borington – well, maybe that was not its real name – exactly eleven months ago, a month after the infamous Halloween night. The other kids at school loved to talk about it, but I hadn’t been there to see it. This year would be different. This year, I lived right next to the Poachers’ Forest, where everyone said all the fun always happened. If something sinister was going to appear, I would know it. However, since staring out of the window for hours was really boring, I had put Levi on the look-out. In the meantime, I slaughtered some virtual monsters on my computer.
Levi yawned loudly. I grumbled. Not yet… I thought to myself. Couldn’t he even stay awake for one night only?
“Jamie, I’m tired. This isn’t fun at all,” Levi complained.
I glanced at the alarm clock. 11:58pm, the red glowing numbers showed. Almost time. Almost midnight. Almost Halloween.
I put my controller aside and rapidly climbed on top of our bunk bed. Jamie was sitting crouched near the skylight. His breath had left marks on the glass, as a draught came through the window.
“Move it,” I commanded, pushing Levi aside. “I want to watch.”
Levi gave me a sluggish look. He nudged the sleep out of his eyes. I suspected he hadn’t been awake all evening, even though I had told him to do so. What if the monster had passed by while Levi had been drowsing of?
“So… Does that mean something is going to happen?” Levi asked me.
I nodded. “And I am the one with the first-rate seats.”
I could feel my heart throbbing as I looked at the alarm clock. 12 o’clock. Were the stories true or were my classmates just messing with me? I had to know.
Levi whacked me aside with his elbow. “This is my bed. I deserve the first-rate seat.”
We both pressed our noses up against the window, side by side. I could still feel the spot where Levi had hit me. He was surprisingly strong for a six-year old and angering him definitely wasn’t fun. I wanted to take revenge, but I knew that if he started yelling, mum and dad would be here in a second. Then the fun would be over forever…
BOOM!
A deafening bang echoed through the Poachers” Forest. Was it the sound of thunder or was it something less ordinary? I could think of a million things it could have been, but it was for sure that it was real. Levi had covered his ears with his hands to protect them from the noise. A group of winged creatures glided past, lit by nothing but the moon.
“Are those bats?” Levi asked.
I chuckled, even though my blood had run cold. “No, you moron, they were just birds. But something must have scared them…”
Levi frowned. “Are you deaf? They were freaked out because of that explosion!”
“Or because of something else…” I mumbled. “Look over there.”
A hunched figure was standing in the shade near the end of the street, close to the edge of the forest. His back was turned to us, but I could tell something was off. He was very tall and thin, with snow-white skin and a head as round as a bowling ball. A black mantle adorned his pointy shoulders and covered arms that almost reached his feet.
When the person turned around, I was sure about it: that creature was not human! He did not have eyes or ears. He lacked a nose and a mouth. His face was perfectly smooth, as if it was an egg instead of a head.
As soon as I realised what I saw, I crawled back and dragged Levi along. You shouldn’t let it see you, the little voice in the back of my head told me.
“What are you doing?” Levi asked, clearly annoyed.
“We have to hide,” I whispered.
“Why? It’s just a person in a costume…”
No matter what Levi thought it was, I was sure something was not right. I pressed his head down, into the mattress.
“Jamie!” he squeaked.
“Stay down!” I murmured, as I pressed my back against the wall.
Levi laughed quietly. “Do you really think it’s real? It doesn’t even have eyes. It’s not like it can see us.”
“Then be quiet!” I hissed.
Levi raised his head and made a face as if he thought I was stupid. “Does it have ears?”
“No, it doesn’t…” I sighed.
“Then stop freaking out. You’re not a bird, are you?”
I glanced through the window again, watching the figure walk slowly across the street. His head was tilted slightly, as if he were looking for something – if he could see anything at all.
Levi wrestled me until I loosened my grip on the back of his head. Immediately, he whizzed down the ladder. I quickly shut the curtains and followed him. There were two important questions left for me. Firstly, where was my moronic brother going? Secondly, what could a creature without face possibly be looking for?
Quietly, Levi opened the door to our bedroom and sneaked outside. He tiptoed across the hallway.
“Where are you going?” I asked softly. “Mum and dad cannot know we are still awake!”
Levi pointed at the stairs. “Downstairs,” he answered. “I want to see it.”
“It could just be someone who’s trying to scare us…” I said with trembling voice.
Levi did not listen. He crept down the stairs without thinking. I had to go after him. Sometimes, Levi was not just a moron. At those times, he was just an idiot. Like now. As I liked to think, Levi was the brave one when it came to the two of us. I was the one with the brains.
Downstairs, Levi opened all curtains and lit all lamps in the room. The situation was even worse than I thought… The faceless monster was standing in our own front yard! It was so close it could smash the windows with ease, especially with those monstrous arms.
I held my breath. Levi was standing face to face with something that came directly from my nightmares.
This had been my idea. Why had I been so stupid? Borington, no way. This was Creepsville.
“Stay away from that window,” I whispered. “We don’t know if this is a prank. What if it is dangerous?”
Levi shrugged and turned towards me. “Isn’t that part of the fun of monster hunting?”
The creature disappeared. Just now, it had been standing right in front of us. In the one second Levi turned around, it was gone. Where could it be hiding?
I ran across the room, looking out of every single window. Gone. It was gone. My stomach turned in my belly. Something bad was about to happen. This was not possible. No prankster was this good…
I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Levi and I both leapt in the air out of fright. This was worse than the monster…

Having a lively imagination is both a blessing and a curse, especially for those who aspire to use their creative mind. On one hand, it is an amazing ability to always be able to come up with new ideas. On the other hand, coming up with these ideas might not always be the best experience, even more so when they appear at night. I am prone to nightmares. It might be because horror is my preferred genre, but the mind is sadly stronger than most actual horror movies and books. Still, I cannot say I suffer from these dreams. I am pretty much used to them; they come to me daily, although “nightly” may be more fitting in this case.

I would like to advice those who, like me, love to write and experience the same as I do, to keep a dream diary. Having nightmares might not be a nice experience, but there is a good side to almost every bad thing. In this case, you could use these strange dreams to trigger the imagination even more to come up with the best idea ever. Alright, that may be an overstatement, but the point still stands. Keeping a dream diary – by writing in it right after you wake up or else the dream will be forgotten – is a great way to both train the mind to remember any form of inspiration and to have this notebook full of imagination-triggering adventures.

Personally, my nightmares probably are not that typical. They usually concern me being alone in a house that isn’t mine where I encounter ghosts, other strange beings or like last time, this horrible mannequin in an attick. Thing is, while it was one of the strangest dreams I had ever had, in the end only two aspects remained in my mind: a little girl ghost who loved to dance and play piano… and that horrible lifeless doll. As soon as I woke up, I loved it. I love having nightmares.

This is not really a blog post in the sense of what I normally write. It is a short introduction to my series, complete with its own fairy tale.

I am always afraid to be regarded as already being published. Posting an excerpt of my first chapter seems a little dangerous to me, so I decided to write a short fairy tale about the origin of my series’ little village called Coven’s End. It probably won’t ever appear in the story, as the level is already too high for my audience. This is not how I normally write, in all honesty. Just to be clear, my series concerns a cursed village, where portals to other worlds keep popping up. The main characters have to deal with all of these strange occurrences, until they figure out what causes all of them.

“Once upon a time, wise men and women ruled over these lands. They knew about the power of nature and spirits. They used that knowledge to create a better world. However, their own people started mistrusting them. They did not understand the magic, so it frightened them. Eventually, they were so scared that they drove off the wise ones. Angered, the wise people decided to flee and come together where no one could find them, so that they could use their powers in secret. They called these groups ‘covens’. Still, no matter how hard they tried, they were found every time. They had no place to go. Their last gathering was here, in these woods, where they decided that the people of this country did not deserve them. After all, they were called ‘witches’ now. When their attackers approached them during their last ceremony, the witches cursed them, their families and this entire village. Right after, they disappeared. That was the end of the coven of Coven’s End – and the reason for every single bad thing happening in this village. The power of the witches is still all around us.”

Now, I have a question: is it really that dangerous to post a small excerpt from an actual chapter?

This might be a terrible idea, but one of my main sources of inspiration is boredom. To be honest, I do not have that much going on in my life. Yes, I will be moving out in two weeks, but for now, I am stuck in my home town where I am supposed to study for my exams. I definitely study for them, but that does not take that much time. In fact, I have way too much freedom at the moment. While it is amazing not to have to show up at university for days, it also can get quite tedious when you are all on your own. Coupled with depression, it makes for long-winded days. No parties, no hanging out – everyone is studying back in our university city (well, it is only 15 minutes away, but they are too busy). Still, this boredom works as an amazing source of inspiration for me. Looking at pictures at the Internet is not all that interesting anymore after a week. By then, I want to actually do something. Being bored is what gets my mind racing. It makes me dream of the most horrifying tales I could ever come up with. While my life seems a little empty right now, my mind itself is full of life. Maybe it’s because of my studies, but I am starting to doubt that; translation philosophers are not the most interesting people when you try to write stories on aliens, vampires and urban legends. I love urban legends, let that be clear. Today, I spent most of my time looking up shadow people and black eyed kids, just because I could. My boredom is forcing me to spend my time doing things, whether it is external or internal research. The gears are turning. I am ready for anything.

I am a writer, not a speaker. I know how to write and typically do so effortlessly. However, a great writer is good with language in any shape or form – a great writer should be a great orator as well. I am neither of those, but the latter quality certainly is lacking in my case.

Today I had to take an oral exam in order to show off my proficiency in English, on a topic I had never heard of. That was part of the challenge: a great orator is someone who can talk about anything for hours on end without knowing the slightest detail on the subject. In the real world, it does not work like that. My oral exam may not have gone horrible, but as soon as I got out of the room, I was trembling all over and hyperventilating. In my writing, it probably is not visible, but I naturally am a shy person. I do not like speaking in front of groups, especially when it comes down to a pass or a fail. Maybe this means I can never be a writer, as writers are supposed to be able to talk about their work with ease… However, if I love the subject, I love spreading its message. I believe that hating oral exams mainly means I can never be an orator – and am a relatively normal person.

After finishing the series’ first book, I felt that is was time to devote a post to the ones carrying the stories: my main characters. I really do not have that much to say today, mainly because my exams are coming up shortly, so this might be the last post for now (my exams will be over in three weeks).

James “Jamie” Lightheart is my actual main character, as the stories are seen from his point of view. Jamie is ten years old, likes to think of himself as pretty smart, likes bossing around other people, is highly jealous and slightly paranoid – although it is generally warranted. On the other hand, he would save his family if their lives were on the line, although he hates admitting so. He is in Year 5 at the local school which he attends (which is both a primary and secondary school).

Levi Lightheart is Jamie’s younger brother, and is around most of the time. He is six years old – although he turns seven in the second book of the series -, is very impulsive, loves food and adventure an frequently gets into fights with Jamie as he does not like Jamie’s attitude. He is in Year 1.

Susan Lightheart is Jamie’s older sister. I haven’t had much time to write about her yet, as she spend almost all of the first book without a face. She could not talk and wandered around aimlessly. However, I do know something about her. She is eleven years old, a little shy but loves teasing her brothers, is obsessed with decorations and dreams of becoming a witch. She is in Year 6.

Alice Wright is Susan’s classmate and some sort of a friend of Jamie, although he upsets her more often than that he makes her laugh. Alice is the daughter of two paranormal investigators. At the moment, she lives with her uncle and aunt, as her parents have gone on a business trip in search of a mermaid. Alice is highly responsible, much more intelligent than Jamie, very serious and relatively quick to annoy. On the other hand, she is very dedicated to whomever she likes and she would give her life if it were necessary – but this is a children’s book; no one is actually going to die. Jamie has a slight crush on Alice, if only because she is everything he desires to be.

Other characters are the Lighthearts’ spy neighbours, Alice’s fortune-telling aunt and tonnes of paranormal creatures surrounding their little village called Coven’s End (that name is the actual thread of the series).